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David
L. McMullen recently posted on the Inventables website a featured project that
involved the use of hand moldable plastic to form the facial features of an
android. The plastic used here is a true thermoplastic, able to be heated and
re-formed any number of times without degradation to the material. With a low
melting temperature of only 136-140°F (58-60°C), this material is ideal for tooling with the hand
and can be used for a plethora of applications as David’s use here as robot
hair demonstrates.

David L. McMullen's robotic hair made from hand moldable plastic

A
question we might ask that arises from this use of hand moldable plastics is
simple enough: why give an android hair in the first place? Facial features
serve no immediate or practical utility on these designs. Under a strict credo
of form following function, such details may even seem superfluous. Indeed,
David’s plastic hair may not be as practically useful as say the android’s
limbs or digits. But I would argue that this facial detailing is of important
psychological significance in relation to the so-called “uncanny valley”.

In
the fields of robotics and 3D graphics, the term uncanny valley is used often
when referring to the surface level aesthetics of a given design. The term essentially
refers to a state in which the design in question hovers between the threshold
of “barely human” and “fully human”. Examples of these uncanny aesthetics might
include Weta Digital’s photorealistic graphics in the recent film The Adventures of Tintin (2011) or the
actroid models developed by both the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology
and Osaka University.

Uncanny designs from Weta Digital and students at the Osaka University in Osaka, Japan

Designs
falling into this threshold of human likeness are often met with an anxious
response. When tooling an aesthetic that has slipped into the valley, robotics
engineers and graphic designers alike attempt to push the image of their
product into full blown simulacrum or pull the aesthetic back into something
that is obviously other than human.[1]
The overall design of David’s android falls more into the category of barely
human. It possesses the basic biped anatomy of a human being but the exposed
electronics show it to be anything but. And
yet there is the hair. The plastic facial detailing on David’s android
pushes the overall design closer to the uncanny valley, an area of
representation that normative robotics design tells us is a faux pas.

On
the other hand, we might see the uncanny valley as symbolic territory that is
in need of exploration, particularly in today’s climate of accelerated
technological advancement. Elsewhere in the design community, the creation of
artificial life and intelligence is progressing in leaps and bounds. Advanced
computer coding, for instance, is now able to produce entirely immaterial digital
bots that can exhibit complex behavior when performing tasks with incredibly
large sets of data. These bots execute actions that can produce immense
ramifications but go about their work in the black box installations of server
farms and digital networks. These
algorithmically produced creatures go about their work with no face.

It
would seem then that by pushing robotics farther into the uncanny valley, as
David has done with his hand molded plastic hair, we may give a familiar skin
to an unfamiliar being. This face may induce anxiety and even fear in the user,
as a traditional response to the uncanny valley would predict. But to me, the
greater fear is an artificial intelligence that I cannot see let alone
recognize. David’s android, with its slick plastic haircut, looks actually to
be quite a friend to human and machine alike.

[1]For an example of these
adjustments, think of the replicants in Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Bladerunner versus Dyson’s upcoming DC06
robotic vacuum cleaner.

At Inventables we have an occasional event in the late afternoon called Beer and Making. Whoever is available goes down to the fabrication area and we socialize, drink beer and make stuff. It is the Inventables equivalent of eating our own dog food.

I decided to make an official sign for the event. I grabbed a piece of 12” x 12” x ¾” bamboo plywood. I enjoy working in bamboo because it does not require a finish, machines amazingly well and smells cool when you work with it. On this project I did zero post machining clean up other than a light shot of compressed air. Total hands-on project time was about 1 hour. I did not take any pictures during the job unfortunately.

Graphic Design

I wanted it to to have a bar sign and beer look to it. I used Google Image search with the keywords of beer, Chicago, craft, and sign and found a Chicago Craft Beer logo on a glass. The bottle cap and beer sign theme was just what I was looking for.

I dragged the logo into CorelDraw. It was low res and at an odd angle so I just slid it off to the side for inspiration. The single color of the logo made it perfect for a V-Carve project.

V-Carving allows fine detail using a V bit. Normally the detail is limited by the diameter of the bit. With a V bit, you can choose any diameter by varying the depth of the cut. V Carving requires special software CAM to generate the tool paths. I used VCarve Pro from Vectric.

I played around with some ideas and came up with decent logo in few minutes. The logo was exported to DXF for importing into VCarve.

CAM

The next step is to setup a project in VCarve to match the size of the material. On jobs like this, I like to set X0,Y0 in the center. The next step is to move the graphic objects into layers. This was a relatively simple job, so I only made two layers. One for the outer cap crimp area and one for the rest of the project.

With V carving, the wider the space you want to cut, the deeper the bit needs to go. At some point that depth will exceed the material thickness. To prevent this, you can set a maximum depth and everything wider than that limit will have a flat bottom. The outer ring of the cap has a thin enough cut area so that is not a problem and a flat area would not look right anyway, so this was setup to cut without a flat depth. The interior has very large cut areas so a flat depth of 0.15” was chosen.

You need to choose the diameter of the flat bottom bit. A large bit will clear the area quickly, but have trouble getting into the corners. Where the flat bit cannot get, the V bit will clear up. You need to set a tiny stepover on a V bit to do a flat bottom, so determining the most efficient flat bottom bit requires a little experimenting. I used a ½” diameter straight flute V bit and a ¼” diameter straight bit for the flat bottom tool. All toolpaths were set to be done in a single depth pass.

Machining

To make the painting step super easy I used the following trick. I used some white vinyl masking material from Avery to cover the top surface. I made sure there were no bubbles and rubbed it down hard with my palms to get it to really stick. I then draw a line from corner to corner to mark the center. The bits will cut through the mask and then it can be painted simply by spraying.

I did not need a sacrificial layer under the work piece because there are no operations that could cut through. I clamped at the corners because they are clear of cuts. You need to very carefully check the level of the top surface and shim as required. A change in height will change the width of cut areas. The bamboo was near perfect and did not require any adjustments.

I ran the two v carving paths first. The outer ring took about 8 minutes and the inner areas took about 14 minutes. The flat bottom cut took about 9 minutes.

Painting

The painting was done with a standard spray paint can. I have had issues in the past where the masking shrinks or shrivels at this stage. I think it is from too much paint. I now put down a few very light initial coats to stabilize it. After that you can spray at will. It usually takes about three good coats to get full coverage. You don’t want too much or you will see a lip of paint around all masked areas.

I let it dry for several hours after the last coat. After that I used an Exacto knife to catch the edge and lift each piece of mask. It is really fun to slowly reveal the finished project. The last thing you do of course is spell check the completed project.

When we were out at MakerFaire 2013 in San Mateo we caught up with the guys from Motorola that are driving around the country in vehicles outfitted with digital manufacturing equipment. We're excited to report that they are coming to Chicago! This weekend's MAKEaTHON will be at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and is being hosted by the Segal Design Institute. Next Thursday July 18th at 7pm they will be visiting Pumping Station: One on CNC Build Night and Inventables is teaming up with them to do a Gonzo build that includes MakerSlide and a cell phone. Details of the Gonzo build are below this video.

The weekend schedule at the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern will be as follows:Friday, July 12 6pm-9pmSaturday, July 13 10am-10pmSunday, July 14 10am-4pm

We'll be building a CNC Machine combined with a phone hack. We do one night group builds that we call gonzo builds because it is a crazy build spread across the building and fabrication machines.

I think I have a perfect project for this collaboration. We could build a motorized camera slider using MakerSlide. The camera would be a cell phone. The cell phone would provide the camera part as well as a way to tell the slider where to go.The Build Club will design and build the machine. We will fabricate the parts on the machines at PS1 as well as in the Moto van. Moto will help us with the phone part.To use the machine ideally a user would have a phone in hand that is showing live video from the phone on the slider. There will also be some sort of interface on the user's phone to tell the slider phone to go left or right.The slider will have power so we can provide charge power to the slider phone at all times.

Pumping Station One is Chicago hackerspace that just celebrated its fourth year of operation. More details about PS:One and event can be found here.

About Make with Moto

MAKEwithMOTO is a project exploring how direct digital manufacturing and co-creation can be used to unlock new possibilities around smartphone hardware. To this end we're visiting Maker Faires and the country's best colleges and hosting MAKEaTHONs with exciting, brilliant, creative people.

We invite all makers, designers, engineers, hackers, coders, tinkerers and entrepreneurs to join us from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon to see what happens when we open up our smartphones to create some epic new hardware. We're providing a VELCRO-covered van filled with the low- and high-tech prototyping tools (including a full set of 3D printers from 3D Systems) as well as hackable versions of our latest smartphones and all the other tools you'll need.

About Inventables

At Inventables we understand it is harder for these smaller teams to source materials in smaller sizes and quantities for their new micro-production runs. To solve this problem, we are building a “Designers Hardware Store” that sells materials in small shapes and sizes for desktop fabrication. We believe this will streamline the process of local manufacturing. Through our website inventables.com we sell equipment and supplies in small quantities for purchase with a credit card. Our selection ranges from over 100 colors of acrylic sheets to 3D printers. Custom manufacturers, product designers, researchers, artists, and inventors purchase from our selection of about 30,000 products.

On Monday the Maker Lab at the Chicago Public Library opened to the public. Here is a short news segment that we did on ABC 7 Chicago News to demonstrate the 3D printers, Laser Cutters, and CNC Milling machines that are installed at the lab.